Sanford Health and Fairview Health Services said they will delay the closing of their merger until May 31, pushing back the closing date by two months after receiving a formal request to slow down the deal from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Still, additional time is not enough to ensure that Minnesotans' interests are protected, the attorney general’s office said in a statement. Ellison’s office said it needs full responses from both parties to conduct a robust analysis of the proposed merger.
The two “have not yet fully complied with our repeated requests for information,” the attorney general’s office said in an email statement to Healthcare Dive. “We are considering all options available to us to secure compliance.”
In a combined statement, Sanford and Fairview said they have voluntarily extended the merger completion date and “continue to work cooperatively” with the AG’s office “to ensure they have the information necessary for their review.”
South Dakota-based Sanford Health is seeking to combine with Minnesota’s Fairview Health Services to create a $14 billion system.
The combination would give Sanford access to the metropolitan Minneapolis market with Fairview’s 11 hospitals.
The existing deal timeline had raised concerns within the attorney general’s office, John Keller, Minnesota’s chief deputy attorney general, said during a previous public hearing on the deal. The AG’s office has collected more than 3,500 comments from the public regarding the deal and is conducting its own internal investigation.
Keller previously said the University of Minnesota has indicated the deal is moving too fast and that its interests have not been adequately considered. Fairview owns the University of Minnesota Medical Center and has a partnership with the university.
The decision to delay the deal came after a meeting of the governing board for the University of Minnesota, according to the Star Tribune. During the gathering in Minneapolis, board chair Ken Powell “blasted the timeline and process” of the proposed merger, the Star Tribune reported.
Powell is asking the systems to backtrack a statement in which the systems allegedly said they would merge “with or without the University of Minnesota,” according to the Star Tribune.